It is much easier to spot poor performance if clear standards for performance have been set. If you suspect that an individual is under-performing, it is important to think carefully before raising the issue with the person concerned. The questions you might ask yourself are:
࿖ What am I concerned about, exactly?
࿖ What evidence do I have?
࿖ Might there be an impact from the project context in which the perfor- mance is happening?
࿖ Are there any factors that may be affecting the situation, such as inade- quate equipment, stress or incompatible priorities?
࿖ How important is this problem?
࿖ What is its impact on customers or colleagues?
࿖ Does it harm our collective effectiveness as a team?
࿖ Are my concerns important enough or legitimate enough to merit intervention?
࿖ Am I concerned about isolated incidents or small behavioural quirks that may not be important to others?
࿖ Is there any indication that my concerns are shared (or not shared) by others?
࿖ Would it be helpful to share my perceptions with the person involved?
࿖ Would it help him or her to understand how he or she is being seen, and provide an opportunity to clarify some mutual expectations?
If you want to raise the issue with the person involved, ensure that you have details of the standards that were set for the performance and any evidence that you have that these standards were not being met. If you start by dis- cussing this openly without accusing the person involved, further informa- tion might be offered and a solution might become evident.
160 Managing projects in human resources
The reasons for poor performance usually fall into one of three categories:
࿖ A person does not understand what he or she has to do. This may be because the expectations have not been thoroughly discussed.
࿖ He or she is not capable of doing it consistently. This might be addressed by providing further training.
࿖ He or she is knowingly not doing what is required. This implies that the individual will not conform to expectations and may become a disciplinary matter.
There are often expectations about general behaviour and these should be made explicit if employees must comply with them.
Any expectations of employees should be explicit, perhaps in the form of policies or conditions of work. These might include details of what is expected in each of the following areas:
࿖ times of work;
࿖ absence and arrangements for sick leave;
࿖ health and safety and the responsibilities of the individual;
࿖ procedures for use of the organization’s facilities and limits on personal use;
࿖ equal opportunities and discrimination;
࿖ disclosure of confidential information;
࿖ compliance with instructions;
࿖ how expenses should be claimed;
࿖ rules about accepting gifts or hospitality;
࿖ rules governing contact with the media.
The overall disciplinary policy must explain the procedure that will be taken if the rules are broken. It is very important to establish that any employee who is accused of poor performance was informed of the standards expected and of any conditions attached to a probationary period.
The timescales and objectives of a project usually dictate the extent to which poor performance can be tolerated. There is often less time available before action must be taken than there is in day-to-day work. A project manager always has to keep the demands of the project as the main focus when making decisions about what action to take.
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Completing the project
As a project nears its completion the focus moves on from implementation activities to ensuring that all the deliverables have been handed over to the appropriate recipients. Deliverables are not always tangible products, and handover may require support or training to enable use of new processes or technology. Delivery of the outcomes will vary according to the purpose and objectives of the project, but all the outcomes and deliverables need to be either formally handed over, or accounted for if anything is missing. The delivery and handover stage may also include making arrangements to resolve any difficulties that arise after the project outcomes have been deliv- ered and everything handed over.
Careful planning is as valuable at the end of the project as it is in the pre- vious stages. One of the features of a project is that it is intended to achieve specific objectives, so the end of a project should naturally be with its suc- cessful conclusion. Lynda Gratton points out that endings can be just as important as beginnings: ‘Without endings, our companies can look like archaeological digs made up of layers and layers of past processes and practices created from the parts of old processes we have never formally ended’ (Gratton, 2005: 20).
She compares the excitement at the beginning of a project with the emo- tional sense of loss that a project team often experience when a project has gone well and achieved its targets successfully, but this also signals the stage
when the team must break up. Planning for and anticipating the end right from the beginning can bring significant benefits to individuals and organizations.